Red Wing

Joe Millar

(1945 - )

If this year's Poetry Month is different from some others, it is in the wide range of subjects. There aren't many poems about "good work shoes." But as you will see the shoes are a means to an end. The last line of the poem is a nod of respect to hard-working people.

Red Wing

Here's where they make the good work shoes

in the long brick buildings beside the road.

Shoes whose stitched, crepe-wedge soles

and full-grain, oil-resistant leathers

bless tiny bones in the ankles and feet, shoes

of carpenters balanced on roof beams,

electricians, farmers, iron workers, welders—

cuffs frayed with sparks from the torch.

At shift's end the socks emerge tinged

pale orange, tops of the arches crisscrossed

with lace marks, propped up in front

of the six o'clock news.

Here's to the sweet breath of pond mist filling the lungs of summer.

Here's to baked beans and twelve hours off.

Here's to dust from the trucker's shoe, dust he stepped into three states back.

Here's to shingles, aluminum flashing, wall studs, rafters, ten-penny nails,

here's to tomatoes, onions and corn,

here's squatting down and here's reaching over,

here's to the ones who showed up.

About the poet: Joseph Millar is the author of three poetry collections, including Blue Rust (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2012). Millar grew up in western Pennsylvania and was educated at Penn State and Johns Hopkins University, where he earned an MA in poetry writing.

You can view a reading of this here.